


A Family Found in Time

by mamacyno



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Non-romantic garcy, Post-Season 2, Speculation, Theory on how Lucy & Flynn are connected, lyatt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 01:34:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14760074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mamacyno/pseuds/mamacyno
Summary: “I love you, Lucy,” Flynn hears Wyatt tell Lucy."About damn time," Flynn thinks to himself.  He is selfishly disappointed with Lucy’s decision to not respond in kind to Wyatt’s overdue declaration, but he also knows that they all still have a lengthy journey left on this road.Speculation fic on the backstory between Lucy Preston and Garcia Flynn. Story is canon-compliant through Season 2.





	1. May-July 2018 – Original Timeline

**Author's Note:**

> Just a warning... This gets a bit timey-wimey with alternate timelines. I hope I don’t hurt your head. Also, I purposely excluded details on certain Lyatt scenes that I think are significant to their story, because they are events that I want to give full attention to via a dedicated fic.
> 
> Tumblr Timeless Fandom Acknowledgements:  
> \- Story prompt inspired by @shorthairdontcare22, my muse who got me on the path to pursue a Garcy backstory fic  
> \- Theory and plotline inspired by posts from @bs-fangirl and @victoriander  
> \- HUGE heartfelt thanks to @vicesvsvirtuesfanfic and @alamble23 for doing the beta work on this piece. THANK YOU!!
> 
> Disclaimer: The Timeless characters own my shipper heart, but I have no claim to them.

“I love you, Lucy.”

Wyatt says the words so quietly that Flynn wouldn’t have heard it, had it not been for how completely silent the bunker was with everyone in their respective corners mourning Rufus’ death.

 _About damn time_ , Flynn thinks to himself, as he inches closer to the corner to hear Lucy’s response.

“I can’t believe he’s gone.”

Flynn is selfishly disappointed with Lucy’s decision to not respond in kind to Wyatt’s overdue declaration, but he also knows that they all still have a lengthy journey left on this road.  After all, this is their first pass through this timeline he surmises based on the lack of sudden appearance of a second Lifeboat behind him.

 _Patience_ , he reminds himself. Certain that the heart-to-heart between the two lovebirds has reached its end, he walks toward the kitchen with deliberately heavy footsteps to alert them to his entrance.  He acknowledges their presence with a nod and heads to the cabinet where the team stores the liquor. Somehow it is always kept well-stocked despite how much and how often this team drinks.

Wyatt and Lucy watch as Flynn takes a bottle of brandy from the shelf with his good arm and places it on the table.  He turns back again to the cabinets to pick up 3 cups using his fingers.  Understanding the gesture, Wyatt picks himself up from the floor and extends a hand to Lucy to help her stand.  They walk over to Flynn as he pours the brown liquid into the cups.  They each take a cup and lift them to eye-level.

“To Rufus,” Wyatt says.

“To Rufus,” Lucy and Flynn repeat in unison, with Flynn adding “ _Živjeli_ ” before he brings his cup to his lips.

Wyatt gathers the empty cups and turns to place them in the sink.

“What in the world is a Chocodile?” Flynn asks.

Lucy and Wyatt react in kind and look suddenly at Flynn, who bends down to pick up an empty wrapper from the floor.

Wyatt chuckles, and Lucy looks at him with a smile.  Tears well up in her eyes as she puts a hand to her mouth trying to contain the laugh that pulls at her cut lip and cheek.

Feigning confusion, Flynn turns away and tosses the wrapper in the trashcan, concealing a knowing smile of his own.

********

A little while later Flynn excuses himself to seek out Agent Christopher.  He has a list of activities to set in motion over the next few weeks, and he’s anxious to get started with the one thing that makes sense to do immediately. He finds her in a secluded corner near the bunker entrance on her cell phone.  She sees him approach and holds up a finger signaling that she will be done shortly.

“Kiss the kids for me.  I’ll try to be home soon. I love you,” she says before hanging up.

“Sorry for the interruption,” Flynn says sincerely, “but I think we need to make plans quickly to find a new base of operations.  I know it’s not ideal given the team is in mourning, but Rittenhouse knows where we are now thanks to Jessica.  She and Emma may be on the run, but we can’t be too sure.”

Agent Christopher nods in agreement. “Yes, you’re right. Fortunately, I had already begun working on securing a new location for the team soon after you and Jessica moved in, since it was clear we were quickly outgrowing the bunker.  It’s been taking longer than it should, because there are so few people in the department that I can trust with this information.”

Flynn nods in appreciation of her foresight and prudence.

“The good news,” she continues,” is that they are working around the clock to expedite the remaining necessary arrangements to allow us to move in a couple of weeks.”  Agent Christopher sighs, “I just hope Jiya is up to piloting the Lifeboat for the move.”

“About that,” Flynn says slowly, trying to mask his relief at the convenient segue. “Perhaps we should consider having Connor start his pilot training sooner rather than later? In fact, maybe two people should train.”

Agent Christopher looks at him skeptically with a hint of distrust in her eyes.

“Oh, not me,” Flynn assures her quickly holding up his hand.  “I was thinking perhaps Lucy… or Wyatt – or both even.”

**********

Two weeks later the team is settled into their new headquarters, which is thankfully above ground and spacious enough for everyone to have their own individual loft apartment in a building occupied solely by them just on the outskirts of the city.  Flynn decides it’s time to approach Jiya.  He is sympathetic to her need to mourn having lost the love of his life himself, but he’s working against a deadline known only to him.

Flynn rarely sees Jiya except for missions and family dinner nights, which Agent Christopher insists everyone attend at least two nights a week. The others on the team check on her regularly using an impressive balance of tough love and compassion to keep her socially engaged and emotionally stable.  

To everyone’s surprise, Jiya easily agrees to train Connor, Lucy and Wyatt in how to pilot the Lifeboat even though the task is much more daunting and dangerous to do without the flight simulator that she and Rufus were fortunate enough to have.  But to be honest, not having the safety net of a simulator helps to quicken the pace of their education and refine their skill level, given that the smallest error could be fatal.  Still, the newbies are at least six months from being able to pilot solo and without Jiya triple checking their settings.  Connor is probably at least eight months away.

When she’s not with the others, Jiya spends most of her time in her apartment using a sensory deprivation apparatus that she begged Agent Christopher to obtain for her in spite of Connor’s advice to the contrary.  Jiya eventually won the argument using the logic – or threat – that she was going to continue to hone her visions with or without the device, and with the device was safer, because it included an EEG monitoring feature.  She also regularly plays the “I’m three years older and wiser than I was two months ago” card, which makes everyone’s brain hurt a little.

Flynn knocks on Jiya’s door hoping that she isn’t mid-trance. To his relief, she calls out “It’s open!” in reply.  Flynn enters to find the young woman placing a package of microwave popcorn into the microwave.

“You’re early,” she says without looking up. “I haven’t even downloaded the map packs, yet.”

“Uh…” Flynn responds startling Jiya.

“Oh! Hey,” she says recomposing herself. “Sorry I thought you were Wyatt.  We’re going to try out the new _Call of Duty_ map packs tonight.”

Flynn nods with a closed-lip smile. “That sounds like fun. I’m sure you’ll kick soldier boy’s ass thoroughly,” he predicts with complete confidence.

Jiya smiles in appreciation that Flynn recognizes her prowess when it comes to video games.  “Yeah, that’s pretty much a given,” she says.  “What’s up?” she asks casually.

“I won’t take too much of your time, but I was wondering if I could ask you a favor,” he says approaching the breakfast island of her kitchen.  “It’s a rather big one, I’m afraid,” he adds.

“O-kay,” Jiya says tentatively.

“It’s about your visions,” he begins choosing his words carefully to avoid giving too much away before it’s appropriate. “I’m not sure how it works, but I was hoping you might be able to zero in on a specific place and time. If that’s possible, even,” he adds.

“It depends,” she explains. “My visions are still pretty limited to events that happen in the past - before my natural timeline, but if you give me an approximate date and place, I might be able to see something.  Although it helps if I see or sense something that can help trigger the vision.”

Flynn gives her a hopeful look, “I might be able to give you all of those.”  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a piece of paper folded into eighths. “I don’t know if Lucy told you, but she gave me her journal back in May 2014 two weeks after my wife and daughter were killed.  I was sitting in a bar in São Paulo when she approached me.”

Jiya nods affirming that she is familiar with the story.

“I had a dream last night about that day, and in the dream, I had a memory about something I saw in the journal,” Flynn explains as he slowly unfolds the paper. He places the paper on the island and slides it towards Jiya.  

She looks at the paper which has about a dozen lines of physics equations written on it.  A few of the formulas make sense, but others not quite, although she suspects some of the numbers and symbols are just inverted or transposed.

“I’m sorry it’s not completely accurate,” Flynn apologizes. “Since I no longer have Lucy’s journal, I had to try to recreate it from what I could remember plus what I saw in the dream, so I’m sure there are errors.  Hopefully between you and Connor you can make enough sense of it to correct the mistakes?”

Jiya looks up at him skeptically not quite believing that this much detail could be remembered from single dream. “Why didn’t you give this to us before?”

“I had forgotten all about it,” he lies coolly.  “Truth be told, I had been drinking quite a bit for days when I met Lucy,” he admits sheepishly hoping that Jiya believes him.  

In his defense, the drunken stupor part was true, but thanks to the photographic memory that he’s never openly admitted to having, the version of the equations that is written on the paper is precisely the one that was detailed in Lucy’s journal and accompanied with her future self’s explicit instructions:

_Memorize this page.  Practice writing it from memory, so that when the right time comes, you can give it to Jiya._

 “Huh. OK, well I can give it a try tomorrow with a rested mind.”

“Great.  I’m not sure if it will lead to anything, but I figured it’s worth a try, right?”

“Yeah, sure. Why not?”

Flynn places his hands on the edge of the island and pushes his body weight back to stand up straight and head toward the exit.  When he opens the door, he nearly runs directly into Wyatt who was just about to knock on the door. Wyatt is surprised to see him visiting Jiya but says nothing as he steps aside to allow Flynn to leave.

“Don’t keep her up too late,” Flynn instructs him as he passes by. “She has homework to do in the morning.”

**********

A week later Jiya runs excitedly towards the largest apartment on the floor which the team designated as the common area for socializing, post-mission debriefs and strategizing.  Connor trails behind her trying to keep up with an equally joyous look on his face.  Agent Christopher, Lucy, Wyatt and Flynn look up from their respective tasks unsure of what could spur such enthusiasm.

“What’s going on?” Agent Christopher asks alarmed.

“This… is… it,” Jiya pants trying to catch her breath holding up her electronic tablet.

“What is what?” Lucy asks

Jiya tries to start talking again but fails.  She waves at Connor to take over.

“We have it! We figured it out!” he exclaims to the confused faces in the room.  “We have the formulas we need to make it possible to safely travel in your own timeline.”

“Wait. Time out. How is that possible?” Wyatt asks.

“It is,” Jiya assures him having finally caught her breath.  “I saw it in my visions.  I saw Lucy in the bar in 2014 in São Paulo when she met Flynn – I mean meets Flynn.”

Lucy looks immediately at Flynn in disbelief but is unable to speak.

“Once I was able to narrow down the timeframe,” Jiya continues. “I was able to see Lucy return to the Lifeboat and get a look at the control panels.  They were… upgraded somehow.  The entire Lifeboat looked different, and so did the two of you,” she says looking at Wyatt and Lucy with a look of wonder.

“And,” Connor continues, “from the details in Jiya’s vision plus the partial equation from Flynn, we were able to reverse engineer the formula enough to build a plausible solution!”

Still confused, Agent Christopher looks at Connor and inquires simply, “So what does this mean?”

Unable to contain his joy, Connor shouts, “It means we can save Rufus!”


	2. August - December 2018– Original Timeline

The next six months seem to drag on interminably for the team, as together they learned that Thomas Edison’s adage “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration” is very true.  Although they have the concept and theoretical proof of their discovery, applying it is a whole other story. 

Jiya and Connor work tirelessly to build and test the designs to make the necessary upgrades for the Lifeboat.  The solution that would allow human beings to occupy the same space and time within their own lifetimes is complicated, but the real challenge appears to be how to allow two Lifeboats to exist simultaneously in the same place and time.

There is also the practical matter of how to avoid the very dangerous paradoxes that can occur if you see another version of yourself when you have no knowledge that time travel is real.  Jiya’s later visions seem to confirm that if your past self is already aware that time travel exists, your brain is able to handle the shock of seeing your future self and process how it is possible.  The logic makes sense, but it is still theoretical.

The key seems to be to avoid any situation where your past self who is unaware of time travel sees your future self, because your brain will immediately try to find an explanation within the physical boundaries that it knows at the time.  For example, most sane people would think that the only possible explanation is that the other person is wearing a high-tech mask or maybe they have a secret identical twin, but that explanation would most likely soon falter once you realize it truly is yourself whom you are seeing.  And that realization will likely lead to a mental breakdown.

Avoiding running into your past self is the easier part.  You also need to avoid leaving any photographic, audible or genetic trace of yourself in a location other than where your present self is at the time.  For example, if you are caught on video on a security camera feed in Boston on a date where your present self is at work in California, you would again have to find a plausible explanation to convince yourself how that was possible.  This becomes especially difficult in modern times where technology like facial recognition and genetic databases exist.  On the positive side, however, the digital age also means that most evidence can be hacked and destroyed remotely.  Such a task is much more difficult in the 80s and early 90s when most data was analog and stored in physical files, discs and tapes.

So while the engineers – Connor and Jiya – work on the technical aspects of coding and building the necessary technology, the strategists – Agent Christopher, Wyatt, Flynn and Lucy – work on the tactical plans for how to avoid a devastating space/time paradox.

As if they didn’t have enough to worry about, Rittenhouse and the Mothership become active again in the late summer.  Thankfully, the Lifeboat is operational, and the team is able to respond as needed to whenever and wherever Emma, Jessica and the remaining Rittenhouse goons jump.  With considerably fewer resources at their disposal, however, their attempts to change the past to resuscitate Rittenhouse in a manner where they remain the ones to call the shots proves difficult.  

The Time Team also has the added advantage of Jiya’s visions which she can now deftly manage to help them anticipate the Mothership’s jumps and objectives, thus thwarting Rittenhouse’s plans before they even hit the ground.  Her “superpower” as Wyatt likes to call it, seems to be growing to give her the ability to play out different “what if” scenarios which allows the team to consider different courses of actions and choose the one that gives them the best tactical advantage. The degree of accuracy varies, so they resist the urge to rely too heavily on her abilities to dictate their decisions. But after two years of having no choice but to react to Rittenhouse’s moves, the team finally seems to be able to tip the scales more in their favor.  That does not mean, however, that they aren’t cautious, or that they don’t still feel the weight of Rufus’ absence with every day that passes.

**********

Impressed by Jiya’s self-defense skills, Wyatt offers to teach Lucy similar survival skills.  Lucy eagerly accepts the offer asking that he train her in firearms and hand-to-hand combat as well.  The thought of Lucy needing to know how to do such things unsettles him, but not nearly as much as the idea of her in danger. 

Lucy starts her training around the time that the piloting lessons begin.  The first time she walks into the training area that Agent Christopher had the foresight to install in their headquarters, she is eager to learn everything that Agent Christopher, Wyatt and Flynn were willing to teach her.  Even though her bruises from the beating she took at Emma’s hands had faded away, her ego still smarts when she thinks about how quickly the redhead had overpowered and pummeled her.  That memory and her poor marksmanship have scarred her emotionally.  Had she been a better shot, she would have had enough ammunition left to have been able to stop Emma once and for all that night.

All three of the in-house soldiers dedicate time to help Lucy become stronger, more agile and more confident.  Agent Christopher teaches her how to use her smaller frame and lower centre of gravity to her advantage against larger opponents.  Flynn regularly boxes with her and teaches her how to fight with bo staffs and other melee weapons.

But it is Wyatt who regularly accompanies her to the target range.  It is he who teaches her how to properly hold and fire a handgun, and a rifle, both of which require him to stand close to her while he guides her hands into the proper position for better accuracy.  It is Wyatt who spars daily with her on the exercise mat with no weapons other than their hands and bodies. 

Lucy can’t help but  laugh when she thinks back to those early days.  Initially, Lucy’s clumsiness provided some comic relief as she fought an internal battle with her sense of balance and gangly limbs.  But Wyatt is a patient, and as it turns out, very effective teacher and coach, having had extensive experience training young cadets as he moved up the ranks in the Army.  

The training sessions give her and Wyatt a reason to spend time together one-on-one on a regular basis without the unspoken pressure to talk about if, or how, they should try to repair their personal relationship.  There is no doubt in either of their minds that they are still friends who enjoy each other’s company, but neither is ready to talk about what comes next, if anything.  So, instead, they focus on the task at hand, teaching Lucy to defend herself and how to attack.

As she gets better, any tension that still lingers between them starts to diminish as they laugh and celebrate each time she manages to knock Wyatt off his feet - literally.  But soon the level of competitiveness and intensity increases as Lucy improves rapidly, and Wyatt finds himself on his back more often.

It is during one of their training sessions that they find themselves on the floor with Wyatt pinned on his back underneath her after Lucy failed to properly execute a knee sweep and toppled on top of him.  The double impact falling on his back immediately followed by Lucy collapsing on his chest makes it difficult for him to breathe, especially since he can’t help but respond in kind to her exuberant laughter.

“I’m… so… sorry,” she chokes out between laughs allowing her head to fall on his shoulder.

Wyatt can feel her warm breath on his neck which suddenly sobers him as he becomes conscious of other parts of his body reacting to the feel of her chest heaving against him and her bare legs touching his.

Sensing his stillness, Lucy controls her laughter and props her head up to look at him to make sure he isn’t actually hurt.  He looks at her softly and her favorite smirk appears across his face.  Wyatt moves his hands to her muscular biceps to gently lift her and himself up from the prone position.  He re-positions his arms and hands to cradle her back so that he can turn and gently lay her on her back on the ground.  As he does so, she places her hands on his biceps so that she doesn’t risk her head falling back too quickly and hitting the ground with an inelegant thud.

Lucy’s eyes never leave his as he shifts their position, so she’s sure he can see her disappointment when he releases her and places his hands on either side of the mat beside her.  Wyatt begins to ease himself off the mat, albeit slower than necessary.  Her hands still on his biceps, Lucy tightens her grip and holds him in place hovering over her.  Slowly she slides her right hand up his shoulder to his neck. She closes her eyes as she pulls his head down toward hers, and he complies dropping his upper body lower until their lips are within reach of each other.  Before they touch, Wyatt hesitates causing Lucy to open her eyes.  He looks into her eyes searching for her answer to his unspoken question.  She responds by parting her lips and applying more pressure to his neck to pull him to her.

The kiss is soft and gentle at first, but it grows in intensity as the muscles and nerve endings of their bodies seem to recall past feelings and movements from so long ago.  Lucy tightens her grip on Wyatt shifting her arms across his broad muscular back pulling him tighter against her body, not wanting to let go in fear that she may never get this chance again. She took their one night together for granted, thinking it was the beginning.  She doesn’t want to risk making the same mistake again.

Eventually it’s Wyatt who breaks off the kiss, but he continues to keep his face close to hers as he traces the fingers of his left hand on her face, gently pushing her hair from her forehead that glistens with a light sheen of sweat from their workout.

“I’ve missed you, Lucy.”

“I love you, Wyatt.”

And with those four little words, they feel their hearts begin to mend.


	3. January – March 2019 – Original Timeline

By the time the new year arrives, Lucy and Wyatt are living together in the same apartment.  Like their second ‘first kiss’, it happens quietly and organically with no need to make a formal announcement.  The happy couple remains sensitive to both Jiya and Flynn who still miss their loved ones, and so they reserve their joy and displays of affection for the privacy of their home.

That is, until Wyatt proposes, and they decide not to waste time waiting to get married.  The rest of the team is genuinely thrilled for them and join in their modest wedding. 

Unfortunately, the newlyweds’ honeymoon phase is cut short when the Mothership resumes its jumps with a vengeance, and Jiya is suddenly overcome with multiple conflicting visions which fall on her mind like a crippling weight. Out of concern for her safety, the team orders her to bed rest with a mild sedative and lots of reality TV to help keep the visions at bay.

Without Jiya’s gift to guide them, Flynn, Lucy and Wyatt, with the latter two now able to comfortably pilot the Lifeboat on their own, have no choice but to face this new Rittenhouse the old-fashioned way. They can’t help but notice that there is something different about the cult’s new methods.  Rittenhouse seems to have given up on the previous strategy of using sleeper agents to kill key people or stop specific events in the past.  Instead they seem to be going to the past purely to harvest data and money.

“They’re building up their financial resources,” Connor deduces one evening while the team, sans Jiya, are gathered in the common area after returning from their latest mission.  Rittenhouse had just hightailed it out of New York City in 1945 at the start of the post-war economic boom, after purchasing multiple shares of stocks that more than doubled in the next 40 years.

“And they’re buying up real estate all over the country, like swamp land in Orlando, so they can sell it for immediate profit,” Lucy adds.

“Maybe we should do the same,” Wyatt mutters.

“Why? Tired of shoplifting and committing grand theft auto across time?” Flynn sneers.

Wyatt just rolls his eyes at the man. One wouldn’t say that they’ve become friends over the past year, but they do seem to be working together better to the point where there seems to even be a sentiment of trust between them, especially on missions when they both know they want the same thing – to keep Lucy safe. Not that she needs a man’s protection now that she is an adept fighter in her own right.  

“It’s worse than that.”

Jiya’s voice surprises the group as she enters the room in her pajamas, bathrobe and slippers.

“Jiya! You should be resting,” Agent Christopher insists, ever the mama bear of the group.

“My brain can only take so much _American Ninja Warrior_ , I’m afraid,” she laments before returning to her original statement.  “They’re not just using the information to stockpile money.  They’re using the money to acquire information that they can use or sell.  They’re paying people off for things like insider trading, patent applications, and good old-fashioned blackmail.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t just buy a sports almanac in the past and start placing bets in Vegas,” Wyatt deadpans.

“There’s more,” Jiya continues choosing to ignore the obvious movie reference which used to be Rufus’ job to point out.  “I had a vision,” Jiya looks at Lucy and Wyatt solemnly.

Wyatt puts a protective arm around his wife as if doing so would place a shield around her.  

Jiya takes a deep breath and closes her eyes willing for the memory to be clearer so that she can relay any detail that may help the team. “It’s nighttime.  A woman is lifting a little girl 5, maybe 6 years old out of her bed to hold her arms.  Her back is to the bedroom door which slowly opens wider shining more light onto the little girl’s face.  The movement behind her causes the woman to turn around, and it’s Lucy holding the little girl.”

Lucy can feel Wyatt’s arm and entire body tense around her waiting to hear the rest of the tale.

“There’s a mirror in the bedroom that faces the hallway.  In the reflection, I can see there’s a person standing in the hallway with a gun.  It’s Jessica.  She shoots them both,” she tells them finally opening her eyes again to look at them.

“Who is the little girl?” Lucy asks.

“I don’t know, but she has Wyatt’s eye and hair color and your cheekbones, Lucy.  I don’t know, maybe she’s your daughter” Jiya suggests.

“Am I with them?  Do I appear anywhere?” Wyatt asks desperately.

Jiya shakes her head slowly and apologetically.

Wyatt takes a deep breath in a poor attempt to remain calm. He releases his arm from Lucy’s frame and stands up running his hands through his hair. “But you can’t be sure, right? It could be someone else. I mean, Lucy and I don’t have any children, so maybe it’s a distant relative… or a complete stranger.  Do we even know if this happens in the future or the past?”

“I don’t know,” Jiya concedes. “But I felt a deep connection to them both, like I knew them – or will know them. Maybe my brain has expanded somehow while I was ill last week? We are dealing with uncharted territory when it comes to these visions, so maybe they’re changing… or growing.”  

Wyatt opens his mouth to counter Jiya’s hypothesis, but he notices that Lucy is uncharacteristically quiet.  “Lucy?”

Everyone turns to look at Lucy who suddenly looks pale.  Wyatt sits back down next to his wife and caresses her face with his hand. “Luce? Lucy, what is it?”

Lucy turns to look at her husband’s beautiful blue eyes and momentarily envisions a young child – a girl – with the same colored eyes staring back at her.  She feels Wyatt stroke her hair with his other hand, and it shakes her from her reverie.

“I… I was going to tell you tomorrow morning – after I could take a test to be sure,” she stammers.

Speechless, Wyatt stares into her brown eyes that are filled with fear and disbelief that he is sure matches his own.  He quickly pulls her into a tight embrace, squeezing his eyes shut. Never before has he felt so much happiness and dread in the same moment as they hold on to each other for strength.

**********

Two days later, with the pregnancy confirmed by both an at home test and a doctor, Wyatt begins peppering Jiya with questions to the point where Lucy feels compelled to run interference for her friend.

“Wyatt, if she knew more, she’d tell us.”

Wyatt stands up in frustration and walks toward the windows across the room.

“I’m sorry, Wyatt, but Lucy’s right, I swear I’m telling you everything I see, but the vision isn’t very clear yet,” Jiya apologizes.  Lucy reaches for her hand as a sign of support.

“What about the style of clothes? Are they from a specific era or decade?” Wyatt presses.

“Wyatt! Enough!” Lucy scolds.

“It’s okay, Lucy,” she says as she gives her hand a squeeze.  Jiya looks at Wyatt and shakes her head, “It’s difficult to tell, because Lucy’s body is covering most of the little girl’s, and Jessica’s shadow is cast on Lucy’s back, so I can’t tell what she’s wearing either.

Flynn, who’s standing five feet away leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed, looks down at the ground but remains silent.

Lucy sees the reaction and realizes the thought of a little girl and mother being shot by an armed assassin in the middle of the night is hitting him too close to home.

Wyatt digs deep to think of an offensive plan of attack.  “Then we go after Jessica and Emma immediately and stop them before the baby’s born.  Hell, it sounds like we have at least four years before this happens.”

“And if you get killed in the process?” Lucy frets.  She refuses to say it, but if Jiya’s vision is in fact of her and their daughter, Wyatt’s absence concerns her that it’s because he’s no longer there to protect his family.

The same thought has crossed his mind as well, so he abandons the idea just as quickly as it came.  If an offensive tactic is not an option, then that only leaves them with one choice in his mind.  Wyatt looks helplessly at his wife and tells her, “Lucy, we’re going to have to go into hiding.”

“No. No! Wyatt, we’re not abandoning the team.  And for how long will we hide or be on the run with a baby in tow?  Rittenhouse is still out there. What’s going to stop them from finding us out there alone and on our own?  We’re stronger if we stand our ground and stay with our family,” Lucy cries.

Wyatt is about to protest, when Flynn clears his throat.  Everyone turns to look at him.

“There may be another option,” he articulates slowly.  He uncrosses his arms and walks toward the large table around which the team is gathered. “You two could hide in the past.  Have the baby, let her grow up a bit with you both there, and then return home to the present to almost the exact same time that you left.”

No one says anything at first as they each try to get their head around the suggestion.  Flynn can’t help but to snicker to himself, _I know, time travel, right?_

“That… could work,” Connor reasons.  “Yes. Yes, it could.  You go to the past and give your child a normal rearing – well as normal as being in the past can be – and then return here as if you were only gone for a day or two.  And perhaps when you get back, Jiya will have a clearer picture or we’ll have a way to keep your daughter safe.”

“But we’re not sure what age our daughter is when Jessica comes after her,” Lucy worries.  “What if we get it wrong?”  Wyatt reaches out to rub Lucy’s back, concerned about the stress that this discussion - let alone time travel - could have on the baby and her body.

“Are we even sure it’s safe for Lucy to travel while she’s pregnant?” Wyatt wonders out loud. “And what about the return?  What would time travel to do a child?” 

Connor ventures a response knowing full well what Wyatt’s reaction will be.  “We would only send the two of you and Jiya, since the Lifeboat can accommodate four living beings, in theory…”

“’In theory’ isn’t good enough! We’re talking about my wife and baby!” Wyatt bursts out.

Lucy reaches up to touch Wyatt’s hand which rests on her shoulder to try to calm him down.  “Connor. Jiya. Can you do the calculations to make sure it’s safe for us to travel?” Lucy asks placing her hand on her flat abdomen.

Connor and Jiya nod.

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Lucy says squeezing Wyatt’s hand and looking at him.  “I’d rather take our chances hiding in the past and giving our daughter a normal life than stay here paralyzed in fear or constantly on the run.  Okay?”

Wyatt’s touched that she’s asking, but he knows the resolve in wife’s eyes and voice well enough to know that this is her at her most stubborn.  “Okay,” he relents.  “So what year do you want to go to?”

“1976,” Lucy says with only a slight hesitation.  “Epidurals were greatly improved by then, and if we stay until 1979, maybe you and I can get my parents together while we’re there,” she says wistfully.  “Maybe we can save two – three Preston women in a single trip.”

“1976 Berkeley it is,” Wyatt replies with a slight head shake.

**********

Agent Christopher gives Lucy a tight hug before she steps into the Lifeboat with Wyatt and Jiya.  “I’m sorry that I can’t be there with you and the baby,” she laments.

Lucy gives her a grateful smile, “Me, too.  I’m not sure how the two of us are going to figure out how to raise a baby on our own.” Lucy looks at her beloved husband who is waiting inside, ready to buckle her in her seat belt.

“You’ll figure it out. I promise. You may feel a little lost at first, but your mama bear – and papa bear - instincts will kick in before you know it.”  She gives Lucy another hug and then steps away.

Flynn approaches Lucy before she can ascend the metal steps to the Lifeboat.  She stretches out her arms to offer him a farewell hug, which he accepts. “Take good care of them while we’re gone, please.”

“Of course. Enjoy your time as a mother, Lucy,” he says as he releases her from his arms.  He looks up at Wyatt and gives him a short wave and calls out, “Congratulations, Wyatt.  You’re gonna be a great father.”

Wyatt nods in appreciation with a distinct sense of _dejá vu_ that he just can’t place.


	4. 1976-1982 – Altered Timeline

_March 1976_

Jiya lands the Lifeboat in a secluded area of the Wildcat Canyon Ranch Park, close enough for the couple to walk to the main entrance without much strain.  They are dressed as hikers with backpacks to carry their clothes, money and other supplies, including their Glock pistols and ammunition – just in case.  Agent Christopher was able to provide them with a large sum of money to get them settled into an apartment and to pay for their living and medical expenses until they can find jobs.

Thanks to the resources at the Department of Homeland Security, they are carrying high-quality forgeries of 1976 US Passports, out of state driver’s licenses, birth certificates, gun permits and college transcripts for Lucy, so that she can apply for a teaching job at UC Berkeley, if she wishes.  Wyatt has military identification, but he had told Lucy before they left that he would rather do something in the private sector to avoid the risk of being deployed.  All of the documents use an alias for both of them, which they know will be difficult for them to get used to.

Before Jiya departs, they agree on a schedule of future dates and locations to meet annually.  If Wyatt and Lucy need to communicate with the present, they plan to place an ad with a coded message in the UC Berkeley student newspaper, and Jiya will keep an automatic scan running on their digital archives back in 2019.  Communicating to the past, on the other hand, is much more complicated to coordinate, so they agree to stick to the one-way communication method, and Jiya will jump back in time to them if there is an emergency.

Lucy and Wyatt were both born in 1983, so they feel confident that they can easily avoid any time travel paradoxes until at least their daughter’s fifth birthday. The only time that they need to be careful to avoid any cameras or recording equpiment is January 1981 when they first met Agent Christopher in Washington, D.C., which is thankfully 3,000 miles away.

As they approach the main gate hand-in-hand, Lucy turns to Wyatt with a smile, and asks, “Ready to start a family?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

**********

_September 1979_

Lucy pushes a stroller holding her and Wyatt’s 3-year-old daughter, Alice, past Dwinelle Hall, which is home to UC Berkeley’s History Department. Wyatt is nearby tracking Lucy’s stepfather across the way at the student center, eager to get this mission done for his wife’s sake and then head home with his family as quickly as possible.  Although Wyatt is fully aware that the Carol Preston they are about to encounter is not the same one from 2018, it does not make him feel any more relaxed at the prospect of seeing her again.

He sees Lucy’s pace quicken as she spots her mother coming out of the History Department building in a flowing, flowery skirt and a white tunic.  Her mother’s hair is long and bounces off her shoulders as she walks down the short stretch of steps toward Lucy.  Wyatt watches his wife work her magic, able to see her act out the scene they had rehearsed the night before after tracking Henry and Carol’s routine for the past few weeks.  

Lucy hands her daughter a pink Tupperware cup filled with water and begins walking.  She times her gait perfectly and encounters Carol just as she is about to turn left, away from the student center.  Lucy asks Carol for directions to the student center, and Carol points toward Wyatt’s direction.  She continues to chat her mother up when, as if on cue, the lid on the Tupperware cup pops off and water spills onto Lucy’s daughter’s lap.  The little girl cries in reaction to the cold and uncomfortable wetness.  Lucy asks Carol to hold her purse while she leans down to tend to the child.

Holding the little girl in her arms and against her hip, Lucy asks the young student if she would mind helping her push the carriage the short distance to the student center. Carol looks at her watch and hesitates, but feeling sympathetic for the young mother, agrees in the end.  As they make their way towards him, Wyatt begins walking toward Henry who is sitting a short distance away on a bench in front of the building with his nose in a book.  Wyatt removes his watch as he walks and puts it in his pocket.  He stops in front of where Henry is sitting and pretends to search the faces of the few passersby.  “Excuse me?” he asks Henry, who looks up from the book he’s reading.  “Do you happen to know what time it is? I’m supposed to meet my wife and baby somewhere near here.”

Henry moves to check his watch just as Lucy and Carol approach.

“There you are, sweetheart!” Lucy calls out to him.

“Ahh, there are my beautiful girls!” Wyatt exclaims.  He reaches for the baby from Lucy’s arms.  “Hi, there, babydoll,” he coos to the sweet little face who promptly tries to tell her father the harrowing tale of how her pretty dress got wet. Lucy and Wyatt force introductions amongst the four of them, even though Henry hadn’t uttered a single word to him.  They spur some small talk between the two co-eds, and once it seems they have touched on a common topic of interest, the young family excuses themselves and walks away.

After they turn the corner, they peek back to see Henry and Carol heading into the student center together talking animatedly.

“Think it worked?” Wyatt asks his wife, while planting a little kiss on his daughter’s forehead.

Lucy sighs, “I sure hope so.”

**********

_November 1981_

Wyatt and Lucy celebrate Alice’s fifth birthday amazed at how quickly time has passed, but grateful for the fact that they seem to have succeeded in giving her a normal childhood with two loving parents constantly by her side.  

They have also enjoyed their lives as a normal married couple, which is something neither had imagined would be possible given their usual jobs and living arrangements back (forward?) in 2019.  They live in a cozy single-level 2-bedroom rental house, not feeling the need for more space.  It is much more convenient than their first apartment for the privacy alone, but it also allows them to still regularly spar and train without alarming any neighbors below them.

Wyatt works as the head of security for a nearby hotel, while Lucy opted not to teach, and instead enjoys being a stay-at-home mom.  She uses the free time she has during the day while their Alice is in school to author a new series of young adult books about lesser-known historical figures, including their daughter’s namesake, Alice Paul.  She is rather impressed with her knack for writing historical fiction, and looks forward to the day her daughter will read these.  For that reason, Lucy decides not to have them published in this decade, hoping instead to find a publisher in 2019 when they return.

Jiya comes to visit as scheduled once a year to check on the young family.  Lucy, Wyatt and Alice always travel to the Lifeboat landing site, so that Jiya doesn’t need to stray too far into the open and risk disruption to the timeline.  The arrangement works particularly well, because Agent Christopher comes with her each time, unable to resist seeing the baby.

During her visit in 1980, Lucy asked Jiya if she had a younger sister named Amy, to which she replied, “Of course,” confused that Lucy would think otherwise.  Lucy cried tears of joy at her sister’s return and then sadness that she would have to wait before she could see her for herself.  Amy’s reappearance also meant that Carol had been diagnosed with cancer which was entering its final stages back the present. Despite knowing what happens in the alternate timeline when her mother wasn’t ill, the news saddens Lucy.

As each visit occurs, Lucy and Wyatt remain anxious for any further details that have come about from Jiya’s vision of Lucy and their daughter.  Jiya has to keep reminding them that although it is a year between visits for them, for her and Agent Christopher it is only 8 hours.  So sadly, there is no additional news, but the good news is that the Mothership had been relatively dormant as well.

One cool night in November, Wyatt puts the baby to bed while Lucy finishes washing the dishes from the delicious dinner Wyatt had cooked for them.  (They realized long ago that the secret to their happy marriage was Wyatt’s cooking and takeout on the days he was home too late or too tired to cook.)  As Lucy places the last plate in the drying rack, she feels Wyatt press his body against her back and encircle her in his strong arms.  He trickles butterfly kisses up and down her neck as she leans into him stretching her neck to give him greater access.

“Is she asleep?”

“And how.  She fell asleep as I was putting her into her pajamas – which are getting too small by the way.”

“I can’t believe how quickly she’s grown.”

“I know,” he says as he turns his wife around to face him.  He continues kissing her neck at this new angle.  “What do you think about having another one?”he mumbles into her neck.

Lucy smiles at the thought, but she stops the dream in her mind from becoming too vivid.  Wyatt stops kissing her to look at her and sighs.

“Sorry, I know it’s not the time, but I’m just so damn happy,” he says with a smile that lights up his eyes.

“Me too,” she replies, followed by a kiss on the lips which becomes increasingly more heated as they wrap their arms around each other.  Immediately reading each other’s minds, they smile and begin tugging each other’s shirt hems out of their pants.  Before they can get very far, however, they are startled by a tap on the window above the kitchen sink behind them.

Wyatt’s reflexes instinctively move Lucy behind him and to the side of the window, so he can push the curtain aside slightly and peer into the darkness beyond his reflection.

“Jiya?”

“What? How?” Lucy asks now peering into the darkness as well.

Wyatt doesn’t answer as he is already heading for the door to let their friend in.  Lucy closes the kitchen curtain and turns off the light to be safe and then quickly walks around the apartment to close the curtains in the living room.

“Jiya, what are you doing here? What’s wrong?” Wyatt asks her as soon as the door closes behind her.  Lucy rushes to her friend’s side to greet her with a hug.

“It’s my vision, it’s becoming clearer,” she tells them hurriedly. “The Mothership is going to jump to this area next month.  Jessica is coming to look for Alice.”

“Are you sure?” Wyatt asks in a panic.

“Yes, I see the holiday decorations in town, and a sign that says ‘Happy New Year 1982’”

Lucy sinks into the seat of the sofa but tries to maintain her composure.  “So, what do we do now?”, she asks looking at both of them.

Jiya crouches before Lucy and puts her hands on the panicked mother’s knee.  “Agent Christopher and I have an idea, but,” she looks up at Wyatt, “you’re not going to like it.”

“What else is new?” Wyatt asks exasperatedly and takes a breath to brace himself. “Let’s hear it.”

Jiya stands and replies, “FBI protective custody… for Alice.”

“What about us?” Lucy asks already feeling a pang in her heart like a part of has been ripped off.

“You both return to 2019 with me.”

Wyatt and Lucy look at Jiya with their mouths agape.  “And Alice?” Lucy asks.

“She grows up here,” Wyatt replies suddenly understanding the full plan.  “She stays hidden in time from Rittenhouse.”  Wyatt looks at Lucy who returns his gaze with a furrowed brow, “And us.”

“Agent Christopher – the one here in this present has graduated from Quantico and is already working as an agent in the FBI.  She can arrange a new identity for Alice… and a new home.”

Lucy shakes her head vigorously in response. “No.  Absolutely not.” Lucy looks at Wyatt intensely ready to give orders. “I won’t abandon our daughter. You and Jiya go back, and I’ll stay here with Alice in protective custody until it’s safe.”

“I’ve played out that idea,” Jiya interrupts.  “The outcome doesn’t change,” she concludes sadly.

Lucy looks to Wyatt begging him to back her plan with her eyes.

Wyatt looks down at his feet and shakes his head.  “Luce, you can’t stay here, and I won’t leave you in the past.  Something could happen while we’re separated, and I could lose you and Alice forever,” shuddering at the thought.  

Jiya knows her words will be of little comfort to the distraught mother, but she offers what she can. “When I explore the scenario of placing her in protective custody, the vision of the two of you getting killed goes away.”

“So what?” Lucy asks irritably. “What if that just means she still dies, but alone?”

Wyatt crosses the room to sit beside Lucy on the sofa and grabs her hand in his.  Lucy is too paralyzed with fear to move.  “This is all my fault,” she cries.  “You were right, we should have stayed in 2019 and fought.”

“No.  You were right to have us come here.  We have had over five years together living the life of a normal family. We got to raise our daughter in a safe environment.” The tears in Wyatt’s eyes well up and threaten to choke the next words out of his mouth, “And she will remain safe in protective custody.”

Lucy looks up with him with tears streaming down her cheeks feeling her heart break into a million pieces. “How can you be so sure?”

“I can’t, but we have to make a choice, and we need to have faith in our friends and each other that this is the right one.”

Lucy falls against his chest, and Wyatt embraces her tighter than he’s ever held her hoping his arms are strong enough to keep them both from falling apart.

**********

Early the next morning, Wyatt goes to work and submits his immediate resignation explaining that he needs to leave town that day due to a sick parent on the east coast.  On his way back to the house, he passes a local jewelry store and pauses.  He makes a u-turn for a brief detour before returning home to help Lucy with the task of clearing out all traces of their family.

Meanwhile, Lucy returns home from the local elementary school after dropping off Alice who remains blissfully unaware of any tension hanging over her parents and her “Aunt Ji-Jah”. Lucy finds that there is little that she wishes to bring back to 2019 with her other than her book manuscripts and family photos, which are stored on a laptop that they have taken great care to keep hidden and secure from the outside world. 

Jiya contacts the present-day Agent Christopher who is surprised to hear from her friend Cagney.  Agent Christopher immediately agrees to help with securing protective custody for the small child about whom Jiya provides very little information except that she is in grave danger.  A few hours later, the rookie agent returns Jiya’s call with an update.  Since she has not been at the Bureau long, her network of resources is small, but she is eventually able to call in a daisy chain of favors through those she does know to secure the necessary arrangements.  They settle on a plan for an agent from the San Francisco field office to go to Alice’s school the next day and take her into protective custody before dismissal.

After everything is packed and night begins to fall, Jiya rests on the couch checking her visions to confirm that Alice’s future is changing in the right direction.  Meanwhile, Lucy and Wyatt lie in their bed with their baby girl asleep between them.  They both know that neither will sleep that night, because they will both try to memorize every feature of her face so that it is forever imprinted in their minds.

The farewell is worse than the three of them can imagine, but they put on a brave face to not alarm Alice as she happily leads the way toward her classroom.  Alice gives her parents and Aunt Jiya hugs and sloppy wet kisses and then blows kisses to them as the she runs inside to greet her teacher and friends.  Lucy and Wyatt linger a few more minutes outside of the classroom until the bell signals that it’s time to leave.  Once they are outside of the school building, Lucy’s knees give out.  Wyatt anticipates the collapse and catches her in his arms.


	5. March – June 2019 – Altered Timeline

Wyatt and Lucy return to 2019 less than 3 days after they left, but having aged over five years.  They gallantly resist the urge to ask Jiya about Alice’s future, knowing full well that Jiya is spending extra hours with her sensory deprivation apparatus searching space and time for a trace of their daughter.  Before Alice was put into protective custody, the team agreed that they would purposely stay in the dark about her new identity.  It was a painful decision to say the least, but the alternative was too fraught with risk.  Losing contact with their daughter was enough of a burden, but to make this sacrifice and still leave her in danger of being found by Rittenhouse was unbearable.  But having absolutely no clues to go on, makes it difficult, if not impossible, for Jiya to find any trace of Alice, as her visions are still most vivid when it involves someone with whom she has a personal connection.

For the first week after they return to the present, Lucy refuses to leave their apartment.  She barely eats and sleeps.  Wyatt tries to get her out of the building to see Amy, but Lucy refuses, telling him that she doesn’t have the strength to try to align her sister’s memories of the timeline that she lived with her own.  

Taking care of Lucy becomes Wyatt’s sole reason for being, as he forces himself to deal with his own grief to keep his wife from spiraling down a road he knows all too well.  He respects her need to mourn and gives her the space she needs to do so, but physically he remains within her reach at all times, so that when she reaches out, she will never feel alone.  Sometimes she will engage him in conversation, but most days she is too scared to open her mouth, because she fears no sound will come except for a wail of pain. 

One late afternoon he finds her lying in the fetal position on their bed hugging a pillow to her chest.  She faces the window from which a warm beam of late afternoon sun streams across her body, but she’s not looking out the window.  Instead, she is staring at the family photo propped on her nightstand.

Wyatt crawls onto the bed and lies down behind her spooning her with his body.  He puts his nose in her hair and kisses the back of her head as he reaches his arms around her shrinking frame and pulls her closer.  Lucy responds by placing her hands on his arms, grateful for his emotional and physical strength that has kept her from falling into the abyss.

As she runs her hands over his, she realizes he’s holding something.  She bends her neck to look and sees a gold chain reflecting in the sunlight wrapped around his hand.  Intrigued, she repositions herself to sit up and turn toward him.  She uses her fingers to feel the chain and open his loose fist to further investigate and gasps when she sees a gold locket in the palm of his hand.  Lucy looks up at her husband’s face with a soft smile and curious eyes.

Wyatt feels a sense of relief in Lucy’s serene response.  He had held off this moment for weeks until he felt sure that she was over the hump of the depression phase of grief.

“I got this for you back in Berkeley,” he tells her choosing not to specify the day on which he bought it.   _It’s better if she thinks I bought it before that awful day_ , he reasons.  “I should have thought to get this for you years ago, but I guess I thought there would always be… time,” he says honestly.

Lucy lifts the locket from his hand and opens it.  She lets out a soft gasp at the picture of her baby girl staring back at her from the left side of the locket, and she runs her thumb over the right side which holds a picture of herself and Wyatt.

Still nervous about her reaction, Wyatt tilts his head to study her face.  Lucy’s smile widens as she holds the locket tightly in her left hand and runs her right hand on the side of his cheek which is now covered with a steadily growing beard.

“I love it. And I love you,” she tells him leaning toward him for a chaste kiss on the lips.

“I love you, too, Mrs. Logan.”

************

Over time, Wyatt succeeds in coaxing Lucy back into the real world.  She finds comfort in spending time with her sister, and even her mother who succumbs to cancer two months later.  Lucy mourns her mother, but she still mourns Alice more, and she tries to find comfort in the belief that her daughter is alive and well.

Lucy throws herself back into her training with a renewed drive to put an end to Rittenhouse.  She voraciously researches history books and databases looking for clues of Rittenhouse’s ties.  While going through her mother’s belongings, she finds the blank journal that her mother gave to her in 2017.  Still unsure the purpose of writing the journal, she puts the book away in a desk drawer untouched.

Elsewhere in their headquarters, Jiya and Connor make significant progress toward the Lifeboat upgrades that would allow the ship to travel to a time where the Lifeboat is currently landed. They believe they will be ready for a test before the end of the month.

When Flynn hears the news, he decides it’s time to follow the next and final set of future Lucy’s instructions which means he once again finds himself at Jiya’s doorstep.  Jiya opens the door and invites him in without question.  She can’t explain it, but she feels unsurprised by his visit – as if she should have anticipated it.

“Jiya…” he begins.

“You need my help,” she finishes for him.  Flynn nods with a serious look on his face.

“Okay,” she exhales. “Lay it on me.”

Flynn hands her a small photograph with tattered edges that has obviously been handled, although carefully, for years.  The picture is a candid photo of a young woman with sandy brown hair, bright blue eyes and a slight curl in her lip that reminds Jiya of…  Her eyes suddenly snap up to look at Flynn’s.

Silently she makes a beeline to a bookshelf across the room and retrieves a picture frame.  She walks slowly back to where Flynn is standing, running a finger over the face of the little girl giggling in the lap of her parents who are beaming back at her.  The family portrait is set outdoors in a deliberately non-descript background to prevent anyone from discerning the location and era that the photograph was taken.

Stopping when she finds herself standing again before Flynn, she holds the photograph that he handed to her next the picture of Alice.  In spite of the age difference between the two faces, there are unquestionable similarities between them.

“Alice…” Jiya says slowly.

“Is my Lorena,” Flynn finishes.


	6. June 2019 – Altered Timeline

The next morning Flynn asks the team to gather in the common area as soon as Agent Christopher arrives.  Jiya is the last to walk into the room looking like she had barely slept the night before, because it’s true.  Flynn has a cup of coffee ready for her and sets it down on the table in front of her.  Jiya looks up to him in appreciation and gives him a nod indicating she’s ready to turn everyone’s world upside down.

Without a word, Flynn tosses two worn photographs onto the center of the table.  One is the picture of Lorena which he showed to Jiya the evening before.  The other is a photo of Lorena holding their daughter, Iris.  Once again it is a candid pose with both sets of their bright blue eyes sparkling and their high cheekbones prominent on their smiling faces.

Everyone looks at the photos, but no one reaches for them.  They are all slightly puzzled by both the drama of Flynn’s gesture and the subsequent silence.  While they wait for someone to say something, Lucy looks down at the pictures out of genuine curiosity.  Although she and Flynn had grown closer during their time together back in the bunker, she’s never seen any photos of his family.  She assumed that he didn’t have any after he was sent to prison, so she never even thought to ask.

 _She’s beautiful_ , Lucy thinks to herself as she studies Lorena’s face which is positioned upside down from where she’s sitting.  It’s hard to ignore the color of her eyes, but something else about them catches Lucy’s attention.  There’s a softness to them that complements the almost imperceptible smirk…

Lucy’s body snaps to attention and she immediately looks at Wyatt who is seated beside her and catches her breath.  Wyatt looks at her concerned about what has caused the sudden reaction. 

 _You’re almost there_ , Jiya thinks to herself not taking her eyes off of Lucy since the photographs were put on display.

Lucy reaches for both pictures so that she can look at them side-by-side and right side up.  She holds them up so that she can look at the pictures and Wyatt in the same glance.  Unable to interpret his wife’s expression, Wyatt gently takes the photos from her to take a closer look himself.  There’s a look of recognition in Wyatt’s eyes as well, although he sees it in the little girl, whose smile reminds him of his mother’s.

 _Yeah, you got it_.

Connor and Agent Christopher are still completely in the dark, and Agent Christopher, at least, can’t take it any longer.  “Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”

“These are pictures of my daughter, Iris, and my wife, Lorena,” Flynn explains extending a hand toward Wyatt who hands them over so he can pass them to Agent Christopher and Connor who are seated across the table from Lucy and Watt.  “But,” Flynn continues, “you knew her as Alice.”

“Bloody hell,” Connor curses under his breath.

“Alice?” Agent Christopher repeats.  “ _Their_ Alice?”

Flynn nods.

“Did she have a happy childhood?” Lucy asks unable to think about anything except what her child went through thinking her parents had abandoned her.

“Yes,” Flynn reassures her. “The FBI relocated her to the Midwest and placed with a loving family who loved her as their own.  Her adopted parents were given absolutely no details about the two you except that you had been killed in a house fire somewhere out west.  Lorena didn’t have any photos of the two of you, and but she remembered how loved the two of you made her feel and how much the two of you loved each other. “  Flynn smiles as he recalls one particular memory for Lucy’s sake.  “She remembered that you used to sing _I Wished on the Moon_ to her, which is why she would sing the song to Iris.”

A flashback immediately comes to Wyatt’s mind of Lucy bathed in the moonlight pouring through Alice’s bedroom window as she rocks their little girl to sleep singing the Bing Crosby song to her. 

Lucy, on the other hand, has a different memory come to mind.  She’s seated in a car with Flynn driving through the backroads of Texas in 1936 while he sings along with the radio.  He shared the story of his wife who always sang that song, just like her mother used to do.  Lucy suddenly becomes sad realizing that her granddaughter Iris will not have the chance to do the same for her child.

Agent Christopher and Connor remain quiet as they take in the news and process the timeline changes that their team has put into motion.

“You… knew,” Wyatt says with an accusing tone to Flynn.  “When you suggested that Lucy and I hide in the past, you knew that we were going to have to leave Alice there.” Wyatt’s voice begins to rise.

“Yes,” Flynn admits readily.  “I don’t know how the alternative timelines would have resulted, but I knew for certain that going back to 1976 would ensure that you and Lucy would have time with your daughter and give me my wife.”

The reminder of how precious those five years were not only with Alice, but with Lucy helps to calm the storm brewing inside of Wyatt’s mind and his temper.

Lucy looks at Wyatt knowing exactly what he’s thinking. This man whom she loves more than anything can’t be angry at Flynn, because had he not made the suggestion, they would have been robbed of the gift of time and possibly more.

“The journal,” Lucy says suddenly as the pieces started falling together.  “My journal told you all of this.”

“The journal told me _some_ of this,” Flynn affirms.  “I wish I could say that your journal was a roadmap to guide me, but in hindsight, I think you wrote most of it for some other purpose.  You shared what details you knew about the history and members of Rittenhouse, but much of it was like you were trying to record the history that was lost thanks to our time travel adventures.  It was only towards the end of the journal that you began to leave specific instructions for me, but even those were vague, because you never gave me dates, just events.”

“What kind of instructions?” Agent Christopher asks.

“For example, Lucy wrote that after the team experiences a devastating blow, I should suggest to you that she and Wyatt be trained in how to pilot the Lifeboat.  Then after they made progress in their piloting lesson, I should give Jiya that page of equations to inspire the Lifeboat upgrades. This final instruction to show you photos of my family was only to happen when the upgrades were near completion,” Flynn explains.

“But we looked at the journal that we confiscated from you when we arrested you,” Agent Christopher counters.  There was no mention of future events or the page of equations.”

“I tore those pages out of the book soon after I stole the Lifeboat in case the journal fell out of my possession.  I guess Lucy knew she could rely on my photographic memory to recreate the equations.”

“How would I know that you have a photographic memory?” Lucy asks Flynn.

“Because I just told you,” he responds unable to suppress a smile and a lift of his eyebrows.

Wyatt rolls his eyes, and asks a question of his own.  “So if you always knew that you were going to need Lucy and me alive for your wife to even exist, why did you spend over a year trying to kill us?”

Flynn takes a seat at the head of the table and folds his hands together.  He knew this question was inevitably going to be asked, and he could only hope that they would accept his explanation and apology.

“I didn’t know that you and Lucy were Lorena’s parents. Lucy never wrote anything in the journal about having a child or that the two of you were even married.  So there was nothing written that would lead me to that conclusion, and I never suspected that could even be possible.  It was only after I moved into the bunker – after I started to get to know both of you better, that the thought even crossed my mind. The physical resemblance between the two of you and Lorena is nothing compared to common traits I saw in your personalities.”  Flynn pauses and looks at Lucy and Wyatt individually as he speaks. “She had Lucy’s ferocity and wit, but it was your heart and undying loyalty, Wyatt, that really tipped me off at the possibility.”

Lucy and Wyatt look at each other and grab onto each other’s hands under the table.

“But I had to be sure, so I swiped samples of your DNA when you weren’t looking.”

“You did what?” Lucy and Wyatt exclaim simultaneously.

“In spite of my fugitive status, I still had contacts in the outside world who owed me a few favors.  So I stole Wyatt’s toothbrush and hairs from Lucy’s hairbrush.  I snuck out of the bunker one night and sent them to a geneticist I know back in Maryland. who was able to access a sample of Lorena’s DNA from the evidence files from the night of the murder,” Flynn confesses.

Agent Christopher shakes her head at the story of Flynn sneaking out and back in to their secret bunker.  _I’m so glad we left that damn pit.  It really did suck_ , she thinks to herself.

“The results,” Flynn continues, “showed a definitive genealogical match for Wyatt and a probable one for Lucy given that the hair follicle sample wasn’t as good for testing. But for a brief moment I did think that Jessica was the one carrying Lorena.”

Another flashback enters Lucy’s mind.  This time from 1888 Chinatown, San Francisco when Flynn made an offhand comment which at the time sounded very Flynn-like, even if it didn’t make any real sense at the time:

_Relax. Even I couldn’t kill Wyatt if I wanted to, and I want to._

Returning to the present, Lucy tries to spare Wyatt pain from thinking about Jessica and changes the subject.  “So if I had just written in that damn journal that we were Lorena’s parents, you wouldn’t have tried so hard to kill us?”

“I’m not sure.  Perhaps,” Flynn answers honestly.  “It took me two years after you gave me that journal to steal the Mothership and finally get a chance to save my family.  Then when you three kept stopping me in every attempt I made to make Rittenhouse disappear, I became angry and more impatient.  I was in combat mode, and you weren’t following through on your promise to help me.  I went off the rails and decided if you weren’t going to get out of my way, then I would take you out myself.” Flynn pauses and takes a breath.  “I’m sorry for that,” he tells Lucy and Wyatt earnestly.  Then he looks at Jiya at the far end of the table across from him, “I am especially sorry that I nearly got Rufus killed.”

Jiya nods accepting the apology on behalf of her beloved.

Flynn looks again at Lucy and Wyatt.  “But thank you both for giving me my wife.  You didn’t just give her life, you gave her love, which she passed on to me and Iris.”  He looks down sadly at the photos that are once again on the table in front of him.

“All that sacrifice, and we still lose them,” Wyatt laments with tears in his eyes not only for his deceased daughter, but his granddaughter now as well.

“We might be able to get them back,” Jiya says speaking for the first time since she entered the room.

All eyes are on Jiya as she explains. 

“Flynn told me about Alice being Lorena last night, so I spent some time back in 2014 to see if there were any clues to help us prevent their deaths from happening. I saw a team of 4 or 5 people enter their home,” Jiya recounts.  “But Rittenhouse doesn’t even look for Flynn.  Their targets were Lorena and Alice, and it doesn’t look like their intention was to kill them, but rather kidnap them.  Then things got… messy.”

Connor suddenly jumps out of his seat and makes a beeline for the computer station across the room.

Barely acknowledging Connor’s reaction Agent Christopher shakes her head slightly and argues, “But I thought the reason Flynn was on Rittenhouse’s radar was because he found the name Rittenhouse and inquired about it.”

“Perhaps that’s what tips them off to look at Flynn,” Wyatt theorizes, “and then somehow in their research, they figure out that Lorena is Lucy’s and my daughter, so she and Iris become the new targets.”

“But how?” Lucy asks. “Rittenhouse wouldn’t even know about you and me as a couple back in 2014, let alone suspect that we have a child who was born before we were.”

Connor answers Lucy’s question from the computer station. “They knew, because it appears Jessica and Emma purchased a data cache of hacked FBI witness protection data on the black market earlier this year, and then delivered the information to Rittenhouse in the past,” he explains.  “Your real names aren’t listed on her records, of course, but perhaps Agent Christopher’s sudden request and involvement in a protective custody request so early in her career was enough to tip them off.  It’s also possible that they were able to obtain a DNA sample from Lorena to put the final pieces of the puzzle together.”

“That must have been their endgame,” Wyatt surmises.  “Jessica and Emma have been stockpiling resources to purchase key intel from the present and the future, so that they prove their value to Rittenhouse in the past.  They weren’t born into the Rittenhouse legacy…”

“So they bought their way in… with our family’s lives,” Lucy whispers completely devastated.

Agent Christopher looks away from Lucy unable to imagine the pain they’re feeling and turns to Jiya.  “Jiya, you said there might be a way to get them back?”

Jiya nods and looks at Connor who has returned to his seat around the table.  “We need to hack the FBI and rewrite Alice’s witness protection file details so that they can’t be discovered later.”

“Okay,” Wyatt says ready for action.  “So we just go back in time and wipe out their computers”?

“Not quite,” Connor counters. “We can’t go in with a sledgehammer, because that would alert them to the fact that the data has been tampered with.  We need to be more precise so that they never perceive that even a single byte of information is out of place.  We need to go in with a scalpel.”

“And,” Jiya adds, “since Alice went into witness protection in the very early 80s, it’s likely there’s a heavy paper trail that we need to account for as well.  All of the written documents will need to be replaced as well.”

“My younger self can be recruited to help with boots on the ground,” Agent Christopher offers.  “But how about this ‘hacking scalpel’? Can you two do it?”

“I can probably spec out the design for the coding,” Jiya says looking at Connor hopefully, “but to be certain we update all of the files, we would need to create a data sniffer compatible with practically ancient technology.  To do that, we would need an engineer who knows their way around a mainframe.”

“Rufus has done that before.  He did it in 1969 at NASA,” Lucy recalls.

Connor nods. “We need Rufus for this, I’m afraid.”

Wyatt hits the table with the palms of his hands.  “Then let’s get Rufus,” looking at Flynn and adds, “and save our family.”

 

**********

After spending the rest of the morning building a rescue plan, the team decides to take a break for the rest of the day as well as to take some time to process the revelations from earlier.  Wyatt returns to his and Lucy’s apartment to find her sitting at their dining table with a cup of tea and closed book in front of her.  He smirks knowing that until the day he dies, this will forever be how he pictures her in his mind when he thinks of her.  As he approaches the table, however, he notices that the book before her is a black leather journal with the initials “L.P” embossed in gold on the cover. 

“Lucy?” he asks touching the corner of the journal.

Lucy reaches for his hand and squeezes as he sits down in the chair beside her.  She gives him a weak smile.

“You told me once upon a time that if I didn’t want to write a journal, then don’t.  So I am sitting here trying to figure out if I really have a choice in the matter after all.”

“You always have a choice, and if our plan succeeds, then there may not be any need for the journal anyways,” he says trying to reassure her.

“But what if not writing it causes history to change?  What if we lose Alice or Iris or each other?”  Wyatt can see in her eyes that it’s the last one that is her greatest fear, which he understands, because it is his, too.

“Lucy, I won’t pretend to know how all of this time travel and destiny crap works, but the one thing I do know is that I believe in you.  I trust _you_ ,” he says gently placing his hands on either side of her face.  Lucy reaches up with one hand to hold onto his wrist as he leans forward to kiss her. 

After a minute, he pulls away, drops his hands down to the table still holding hers and continues talking. “I think our love for each other is cemented in time and is much too strong to be broken by the existence of a diary.  But, if you decide to write it, all I ask is that you do it for the right reason.  Don’t do it out of fear or obligation.  Don’t do it for me, and most certainly don’t do it for Flynn,” he snickers. “If you want to make a record of the history that’s changed, because it’s important to you, then, do it.  The choice is yours.  Don’t forget that, okay?”

Lucy nods and leans over to give him one more kiss. Wyatt pushes his seat away from the table and stands up.

“I was going to go downstairs to work out for a bit.  Want to join me?”

“Mmmhmm,” Lucy agrees, “that sounds like a plan. I’ll be right there.”

Wyatt leans down to kiss the top of her head and goes into their bedroom to change clothes.  After he leaves, Lucy picks up the journal and walks over to her desk by the window.  She places it back in the drawer and joins Wyatt in their room.

Meanwhile somewhere buried deep in an evidence box in a Department of Homeland Security warehouse, a tattered black book with the initials “L.P.” embossed in gold fades from existence.


	7. 2019 to 2018 Altered Timeline; 2019 to 1982 to 2012 to 2019 – Altered Timeline II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> July 2019 to May 2018– Altered Timeline  
> July 2019 to December 1982 – Altered Timeline II  
> April 2012 to July 2019 – Altered Timeline II

_July 2019_

The tests of the Lifeboat upgrades prove successful. The test runs also give Lucy and Wyatt a chance to learn the upgraded controls and re-hone their piloting skills having been out of practice for five years.  Confident that every detail has been accounted for, Lucy and Wyatt prepare for the trip that will change everything for the team.

Sitting in the Lifeboat, Lucy begins entering the coordinates into the computer for the jump while Wyatt double-checks and stocks their weapons and gear.

“I’m still not sure why we are dressed like we’re arriving from the jungle,” Wyatt complains.  “Although you should feel free to wear that Lara Croft outfit anytime,” he adds appreciatively.

“Calm down, soldier boy,” Lucy chides.  “Remember how defeated we were that day.  I think we deserve to give ourselves some hope at first glance that brighter days are coming.”

“You just want to show off your biceps, don’t you?”

Lucy bursts into laughter. “Maybe,” she admits.  “Coordinates are set. Buckle in.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

 

**********

_May 2018_

The upgraded Lifeboat lands in the bunker with a metallic thud as it bumps the 130+ year old Lifeboat out of its landing spot.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Wyatt asks unbuckling his straps.

“I like to make an entrance,” Lucy replies smiling as she unbuckles her own straps.  She catches a glimmer of gold as she moves her left hand across her body. “Wyatt!” she exclaims suddenly.

“What is it?” he asks alarmed just as he’s about to open the hatch door.

“Give me your ring.”

Wyatt looks at her like she just asked him to cut off his right hand.  “Why?”

“Please.  Just trust me on this one,” she begs.

Without taking his eyes off of her, Wyatt takes his wedding band off and hands it to his wife.  “You better not lose that,” he pouts.

“Believe me it will take more than a misplaced ring to get rid of me, schweet-heart,” she teases as she places his and her rings into the pocket of her jeans.

“I’m holding you to that, baby doll,” he vows opening the hatch.

 

**********

Two days later Lucy and Wyatt board their Lifeboat to make their journey home to 2019.  The mission to save Rufus went off without a hitch, and they returned their friend back to where he belonged in May 2018.  The plan was for the “Future Lucy” and “Future Wyatt” as they were called in the bunker to avoid confusion, to return immediately to “their time”, the year of which they are careful to not disclose to the group in the bunker.  But they quickly realize just how much they have missed Rufus, his company and his laugh.  They know (or hope) that Rufus is waiting for them back home, but they decide an extra day or two delay won’t hurt.  Plus it gives them time to strategically pepper some much-needed advice to their past selves who are lost and in desparate need of healing and forgiving.

With the hatch door securely closed, Wyatt immediately helps Lucy with her seat belts.  Lucy humors him by allowing him to do so without protest.

“Can I have my ring back now?” Wyatt asks as soon as she is secured and strapped in.

Lucy smiles and reaches for the chain around her neck to pull her locket out from under her shirt.  She deftly opens the clasp to retrieve Wyatt’s wedding band, leaving her own rings on the chain for the time being.  She takes his left hand to place his ring back on his finger reminiscent of their wedding day.  “Feel better?” she asks.

“Much,” he replies with a wink.  “Let’s go home.”

 

**********

_July 2019_

 

As soon as they arrive back on the landing spot located in the sublevel of their apartment building, Lucy anxiously unbuckles and opens the hatch.  To her delight, she is greeted by a smiling Rufus who is standing at the base of the metal staircase which he pushed toward the Lifeboat as soon as it appeared.  Lucy squeals with joy and runs down the steps to launch herself into her friend’s waiting arms.  Wyatt watches from the top of the stairs overjoyed to hear the man’s signature laugh.

Releasing Lucy, Rufus looks up to see Wyatt and once again bellows a hearty laugh.  Wyatt saunters down the steps with his arm ready for a bro hug from Rufus.  “Hey, man, it’s good to see you,” Wyatt tells him.

“It’s good to be seen,” Rufus answers, “but you do realize that you saw me like five minutes ago, so I’m just humoring you with all this affection, right?”

Wyatt chuckles in response, “Humor away, my friend.”

Jiya joins the happy reunion immediately sidling up to Rufus and latching herself onto his arm.  “Feel free to humor me, too,” Jiya proposes.  Rufus nods his head down to plant a kiss on her forehead in response.

Flynn, Agent Christopher and Connor are also present hanging back near the computer console relieved that the first part of their plan worked, and that the team is reunited in both the past and the present.

“So how are we looking?” Wyatt asks the group eager to move on to the next phase.

“You’re looking like John Krasinski in _The Quiet Place_ , but hey if Lucy’s into that sort of thing, who am I to judge?” Rufus remarks.

Wyatt defensively strokes his beard and flashes a signature smirk in his friend’s direction.  “I see that you’ve kept up with your movie watching at least.”

Agent Christopher interrupts to provide the actual update and recap of the past year.  Comparing memories, Lucy and Wyatt are relieved to find that most of the past year progressed the same as before with the exception that Rufus was now in the timeline and had finished the necessary tech to go back to 1982 and modify Alice’s files to better protect her identity.  In their research, they discovered at least one possible Rittenhouse agent who may have been a part of or privy to the request that young Agent Christopher had made to get the protective custody arrangement approved.

“Great. When do we leave for ’82?” Wyatt inquires.  “Lucy and I took an extra day to rest back in 2018, so we’re ready to go.”

“Rest?” Flynn questions. “Based on the sounds coming from your room in the bunker, you two did everything but rest.”

Lucy blushes, but is not embarrassed. She does realize, however, that she is in fact a little tired from Wyatt’s and her late-night activities.

“You’ll leave in the morning,” Agent Christopher interjects channeling her mama bear role for this bunch.  “Tomorrow’s the day everything may change for us, so I want one last family dinner night with all of you.  Connor, you’re in charge of the bar,” she calls out as she does an about face and heads toward the elevator.

Everyone takes her lead and follows behind her with neither protest nor hesitation.

“Hey, Lucy,” Rufus calls out from a few steps behind her and Wyatt.  “What year does _Magnum, P.I._ premiere?  Maybe Wyatt can get a jump start on making the Tom Selleck ‘stache trendy while we’re in ’82.”

“You’re a riot, Rufus.” Wyatt shouts back over his shoulder.

Lucy tugs tighter on Wyatt’s arm unable to contain her laughter and overjoyed to have most of her family back.  _Two more to go_ , she tells herself.

 

**********

The next morning the team reconvenes around the Lifeboat ready to bid farewell to Lucy, Wyatt, Rufus and Jiya with weapons and tech gear already loaded into the time machine. 

 

During dinner the night before, they reviewed the plan again giving Jiya time to check her visions to give confidence that the strategy was sound and would lead to the best possible outcome they could devise.  That outcome, if successful, however, would mean that when the two couples return to the present, it would be very different.  And with any luck, Rittenhouse would be dealt a game-changing blow.

 

As the group exchanges a final round of hugs, bro hugs and goodbyes, Lucy tightens her grip on the locket which hangs low near her abdomen and approaches Flynn.

 

“I’m going to get them back for you,” she promises.

“We both will,” Wyatt adds joining them.  “You just promise me that you will treasure my little girl like a queen.”

 

Flynn extends a hand to his future father-in-law.  “You have my word,” he swears.  “Thank you both for giving me my life back, not only my family, but my soul.  You told me once, Lucy, that you didn’t think I was a monster.  Thank you for putting me back on the right path to prove you right.”

 

Lucy bites her lip to hold back her tears and pulls Flynn into an embrace.  “I know you won’t remember any of this but thank you for never losing sight of what you’re fighting for.” She steps back but reaches for Flynn’s hand and Wyatt’s hand with the other.  “That’s what our family does.  It’s our legacy,” she says squeezing both of their hands and allowing a tear to roll down her face.

 

Wyatt looks at Lucy and gives her hand a small tug nodding his head toward the Lifeboat signaling it was time to go.

 

**********

_December 1982_

The Lifeboat arrives in the same spot outside of Washington, D.C. that it did the first time, and the team quickly checks into  a nearby motel.  Jiya calls Agent Christopher and asks her to meet them at their motel as soon as she can.  She agrees to stop by after work which gives the group time to go shop(lift)ing for appropriate clothes much to Jiya’s delight.

                                                                                                                                 

When Agent Christopher joins them, she gives Lucy and Jiya, whom she still calls Cagney and Lacey, with a hug and Wyatt with a handshake.  Rufus introduces himself without bothering with the pretense of an alias.

 

Wyatt thanks the young agent for her help with protecting the little girl the month prior taking care to not show too much emotion which could give away his personal connection to her.  Lucy gives her thanks as well, but explains to Agent Christopher’s horror that unfortunately there was a leak at the Bureau, and the little girl was eventually found and killed years later. They reassure her that they have a plan and quickly summarize it for her.

“Wait a second,” she says when they finish.  “You want me to help you infiltrate not one, but two FBI locations?”

 

Lucy nods apologetically. “I’m sorry that we have to ask this of you, but we promise we’ll be careful.  No one will even know that we were there.”

 

Agent Christopher shakes her head.  “I must really care for you lot to keep putting my career on the line,” she says.

 

“We’re kinda like your little bear cubs,” Rufus tells her.

 

Wyatt stands up and begins unfolding blueprints over the table in the motel room to avoid having to explain Rufus’ metaphor.  “Here are the floorplans for the first building…,” he begins as he reviews their planned routes once in the building and the list of ID credentials they will need to gain entry.

 

**********

Late in the day the next afternoon, the two teams of two and Agent Christopher rendezvous a few miles away the FBI buildings where both objectives were met without incident.  Rufus can’t remember the last time that the team’s plans went according to plan.  He’s grateful for the apparent turn in luck, but knowing they still have more to do, he refuses to relax just yet.

Although they don’t discuss it aloud, the others remain reserved as well.  The lack of celebration for a job well done does not go unnoticed by Agent Christopher.

“Shouldn’t you guys be happier after a successful mission?” she asks.

“We should – and we are.  Really, we promise,” Jiya replies with a small smile, “but we still have some more work to do before we can be sure that we were - will be - successful.”  After a moment, she shrugs and adds, “That’s time travel for you.”

“So,” Agent Christopher begins, “I suspect that means that I haven’t seen the last of you just yet.”

“I’m afraid not,” Jiya replies.  “We need another big favor.  We’re going to need you meet us in Maryland.”

A small laugh escapes Agent Christopher.  “Why would you consider that a big favor? Maryland isn’t that far from here,” she asks.

Jiya looks at her sheepishly.  “It’s not the where that’s the big favor. It’s the when.”

Agent Christopher braces herself.  “And _when_ do you need me to meet you there?”

“In like twenty years?”

_When did my life become so weird?_ Agent Christopher asks herself.

**********

_April 2012_

The Lifeboat lands once again in the same spot outside of Washington, D.C. twenty years later.  This is Rufus’ first trip to a time within his timeline, and although he’s reviewed the formulas that inspired the upgrades, he’s still visibly nervous about the situation.

 

“Okay, people.  We have enough battery for one more jump after this,” he announces, “so let’s not stay here one minute longer than we need to.”

 

“Rufus,” Jiya says in a calm voice, “don’t worry.  It will be fine.  Plus, being in the 21st century has its perks – internet and cell service,” she says holding up her smartphone and laptop.  She lowers both again to her lap and continues busily typing.

 

“I still don’t like it, so let’s text Agent Christopher to meet us, give her the package and then hightail it out of here,” he pleads.

Wyatt glances over at Lucy who remains quiet trying to remain focused on the mission.  He reaches to unbuckle Lucy’s straps and suggests they step outside for some air.

When the hatch opens, they are met with a cool spring breeze that rustles through the trees of Patuxent Research Refuge.  Wyatt steps out of the Lifeboat and turns back around to help Lucy exit.  Wyatt looks to see if the others are coming, but Jiya is still busily typing on the computer, and Rufus shakes his head. 

 

“No thanks,” he says. “I’d rather avoid the possibility – no matter how remote - of a drone flying ahead with a video camera.”

“Suit yourself,” Wyatt shrugs and turns to catch up to Lucy who is walking among the trees with her hands in her pockets and her face turned upward toward the sun peeking through the tree branches above.  He approaches her from behind and encircles her in his arms. Lucy sighs contentedly leaning into his embrace.

 

“It’s almost over,” he assures her with a kiss on her cheek.

 

“I know.  I just hope it works,” she says absentmindedly lifting a hand up over her shoulder to touch his hairy cheek.  “Hmm…,” she murmurs pensively.

 

“What?”

 

“I miss the scruff,” she admits.

Wyatt leans his head down and purposely rubs his beard over her cheek causing her to recoil with a giggly groan.  He smiles to himself happy to have succeeded in getting her to relax even for just a moment.

 

They hear the rustling of dead leaves underfoot coming closer and turn to see Jiya walking toward them. 

 

“I confirmed that Lorena and Iris are still in this timeline, so I went ahead and got hold of Agent Christopher.  She’s going to meet us a few blocks from Fort Meade in an hour.”

 

Lucy and Wyatt nod, and start to head back toward the Lifeboat so they can get ready to go.  Jiya holds out a hand to stop them.

 

“Rufus and I can go meet her.  I was thinking that you two could check out something else,” she suggests cryptically.

 

“Like what?” Lucy asks.

 

“I was checking social media, and it looks like Iris has ballet class on Wednesdays – which is today.  And afterwards, Lorena usually takes her to the park across the street from the studio to play in the playground.  Maybe you’d like to see if you can sneak a peek?” Jiya asks.

 

Lucy instinctively fingers her locket, turns to Wyatt and nods vigorously.  Wyatt knows immediately that he won’t be able to talk her out of the idea even if he wanted to, which he doesn’t.

 

Jiya smiles at them wishing she could see Alice again, too, but she knows she’s going to have to hurry to coax Rufus out of the Lifeboat to avoid being late to meet Agent Christopher.

 

As they head back with Jiya to help her convince Rufus, Wyatt hears a small chuckle from Lucy’s throat.

 

“What is it?” he asks.

 

“Another plus about being in this century is that we don’t have to steal a car.  We can just call a cab for once.”

 

**********

The team takes two separate taxis to the Meade Heights area and agree to rendezvous back at the Lifeboat in four hours.  That should give Jiya and Rufus enough time to deliver the package containing a handwritten letter from the future Agent Christopher to the one in the present day.  The letter contains specific instructions to be followed at designated times.  Not wanting to repeat the risk of misinterpretation that occurred with Lucy’s journal, Agent Christopher left no room for doubt in her writing.

 

Meanwhile not too far from their teammates, Lucy and Wyatt sit at the base of the trunk of a large tree near the children’s playground.  Keeping their eyes peeled for Lorena and Iris, Wyatt sits leaning his back against the tree with Lucy settled in front of him between his raised knees with his arms around her in a relaxed embrace.  There are not many passersby, and if there are, they hope is the people will avert their eyes from the young couple to give them some privacy. 

 

They wait patiently for nearly a half hour, but as the minutes speed past, they become worried that they will need to leave soon without seeing their daughter and granddaughter.  Reluctantly Wyatt shifts his weight indicating that it was time to go, but before Lucy can begin to protest, a small girl in a leotard and leggings runs onto the playground with her mother walking behind her at a much slower pace.  She calls out to her daughter.

“Iris, we can’t stay too long today.  Fifteen minutes tops.”

 

“O-kay,” the little girl replies as she ascends the ladder to the top of the slide.

 

Lucy can barely contain her excitement at seeing them, and she can see from Wyatt’s broad smile that he feels the same way.  She takes care to change her position so that she and Wyatt remain well hidden in their viewing spot.  The couple doesn’t say a word to each other, and instead revel in this unexpected opportunity to see their loved ones.

 

True to her word, Lorena calls to Iris after fifteen minutes, and the two of them head back across the street to their parked car.  After their car disappears from sight, Lucy exhales the breath she didn’t realize she was holding.

 

Wyatt fights the numbness in his legs from sitting so long and carefully stands bracing himself against the tree trunk.   He extends his hand to help Lucy to her feet.  Once she is standing, she launches herself into Wyatt’s arms and hugs him tightly.  He can feel the shoulder of his shirt become wet from her silent tears.

 

“Don’t worry, babydoll,” he assures her.  “We’ll save them.  In fact, we may already have.” He puts an arm around her waist, and they head out to find a taxi.

 

They arrive back at the refuge shortly after and begin the easy hike toward the Lifeboat.  They walk silently hand-in-hand with no sound other than their feet shuffling through the leaves on the ground.  When the Lifeboat comes into sight, they see Jiya and Rufus busily prepping to leave.  They turn to see Wyatt and Lucy heading toward them and wave.  Wyatt waves back and keeps walking, but he realizes that Lucy has stopped moving her feet.

 

“Luce? What’s wrong?” he asks.

 

“With any luck, this will be the last time we have to step foot in that thing,” she says slightly remorseful for her disparaging remark toward the machine that has allowed them to save numerous lives, including their loved ones.

 

“You could be right,” Wyatt responds, although his confidence level is slightly less having lived the realities of war and battles for much too long. 

 

“Maybe it’s time then.”

“Time for what?” he asks genuinely unsure about what she means.

 

“Time for that second baby I know you still want,” she says looking at him hopefully.

 

Wyatt can’t help but smile back at her. “That sounds wonderful,” he says as he gives her a chaste kiss on the lips.  “But let’s take care of one thing at a time, okay?”

 

Lucy nods and resumes walking alongside her husband toward the Lifeboat.

 

**********

_July 2019_

The Lifeboat battery holds its charge for the final jump without any issue.  Upon landing back in their present, Jiya stands to open the hatch door, but Wyatt stops her.

“We can’t be too sure about who’s on the other side of that door,” he warns.  He unholsters his gun and nods at Lucy to follow his lead.  Without hesitation she pulls out her own handgun, clicks off the safety and chambers a bullet as Wyatt does the same.

 

With Lucy and he positioned at the hatch door, he releases the lock praying for a friendly face on the other side.

 

“Welcome home,” they hear Agent Christopher say.

 

Wyatt and Lucy smile at each other carefully clicking the safety back in place while putting their weapons away.  They move out of the way so that Jiya and Rufus can see the scene for themselves. 

 

They landed back in the bunker as planned.  Connor stands from behind the computer console to retrieve the metal staircase so that the team can exit.  Agent Christopher remains standing where she was with knitting needles and a very irregularly shaped scarf in her right hand.

 

The team quickly disembarks eager to hear the results of their efforts.

 

“You did it,” Connor tells them with a broad smile.  He looks at Agent Christopher and revises his statement slightly.  “You all did it.”

 

“Lorena and Iris?” Lucy asks.

 

“They’re safe and with Flynn, whom I recruited from the NSA to Homeland Security in 2012 shortly after meeting with you.  He never took on the consulting work that led to him to learning about Rittenhouse and Mason Industries, so he never alerted anyone to their connection.  Working for DHS he remained under their radar, which means he never learned that time travel exists, and more importantly, he never stole the Mothership.”

 

“Which means,” Wyatt presumes, “he never rescues Emma, and Rittenhouse never gets the Mothership either.”

 

“So where is the Mothership now?” Rufus asks

 

“In a secure location,” Agent Christopher answers.  “I managed to secretly contact Connor before he got in too deep with Rittenhouse.  That gave us the opportunity to clear him as an informant, which allowed DHS - the agents we could trust anyway - to keep tabs on Rittenhouse and him,” Denise says giving Connor a knowing look. 

 

“It was like living out a real-life Bond movie,” Connor gushes.

 

Agent Christopher rolls her eyes at her friend.  “Anyways, I’ve been trying to convince my superiors to dismantle the Mothership, but the government is hesitant to destroy it.  Which is why we are going to keep the Lifeboat hidden and secure here.  Just in case.”

 

“But doesn’t the government own this bunker?” Jiya asks.

 

“Not anymore,” Connor replies.  “I do.”

 

Rufus looks at Connor skeptically.  “You’re still rich?”

 

“Still?” Connor questions with alarm in his voice.  “What do you mean by ‘still’? What happened to me in your timeline?”

 

Everyone looks at Connor silently relishing his panicked reaction.

 

“Well, no matter,” Connor concedes, “All is well now.  Although, Rufus, we will all be in a pickle with your mother if we show up late for your brother’s basketball game tonight.”

 

“My mom? And brother?” Rufus repeats.  “My family knows I’m alive?”

 

Connor looks at Rufus questioningly and nods. Rufus lurches forward and picks him up in a bear hug spinning him around.

 

“Bloody hell!” Connor exclaims.  “Put me down! I am still your employer, remember.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Rufus does what he is told and instead picks up Jiya and spins her around.

 

“Rufus,” Wyatt warns pulling Lucy close to his side, “if you come near me and try to pick me up, I swear I’ll shoot you.”

 

Rufus just replies with his signature laugh.


	8. Afterword: May 2020 – Altered Timeline II

_May 2020_

“Excuse me.  You’re not Lucy Preston, are you?”

 

Lucy turns her attention from the plaque she was reading in the Alamo Garden to see a young girl looking slightly starstruck.  Seeing that Lucy appears to be struck as well, Wyatt replies on her behalf.

 

“She sure is,” he says proudly.  “I’m Wyatt Logan, her husband. What’s your name?”

 

“Iris. Iris Flynn,” she replies politely.  “I’m a huge fan of your books, Ms. Preston.”

 

“Well, I am absolutely flattered, Iris,” Lucy tells her with a big grin.  “Thank you so much, and please call me Lucy.”

 

Wyatt looks up and sees a tall man with dark hair and familiar stride walking toward them. He’s walking hand-in-hand with a woman with sandy brown hair and bright blue eyes.  Wyatt can barely contain the grin that threatens to creep across his face as well.

 

“Iris,” the man calls out as they approach.  “I hope you’re not bothering these nice people.”

 

“Oh, she’s not bothering us at all,” Wyatt assures them.  “Wyatt Logan,” he says extending his to the man whom he knows well but is officially a stranger in this timeline.

 

“Garcia Flynn,” he replies accepting the handshake.  “This is my wife Lorena, and it seems you’ve met our gregarious Iris here.”  Flynn looks at Lucy with a hint of recognition in his eyes.  “I’m sorry,” he says to her, “but do we know each other?”

 

“Lucy Logan - well, Preston, professionally,” she answers shaking his hand as well.  “I don’t believe we’ve met, but my face may be familiar, because it’s on the back of my books.”

 

“Daaaad,” Iris complains.  “This is _the_ Lucy Preston,” she says under her breath. “The one who writes the books about historical figures that I’m always reading?”

 

“Oh, of course!” Lorena exclaims.  “Iris loves your books, and she loves history.  Your story about the men and women of the Alamo is what prompted our little road trip today.  What a coincidence to run into you here!”

 

Wyatt suppresses the smirk pulling at his lips.  “That is quite the coincidence. Do you live in the area?” he asks knowing full well what the answer is.

 

“We live in Dallas,” Lorena replies.  “Garcia works for the Department of Homeland Security,” she says proudly.  “One of his superiors, the woman who recruited him, had planned a weekend getaway to San Antonio, but had to cancel at the last minute, so she offered her hotel reservation to us.”

 

“Darling, you don’t need to tell them our life story,” Flynn teases.

 

Lucy gives Lorena an encouraging smile.  “Oh, don’t worry.  My husband here is in US Army Special Forces, so your secret is safe with us.”

 

“Really? Are you based in Fort Hood?” Flynn asks?

 

“For the time being,” Wyatt replies.  “I requested a reassignment while Lucy does a working sabbatical at the University of Texas, at least until the baby’s born,” he says indicating Lucy’s prominent belly.

 

“Oh wow!” Iris exclaims, “Congratulations!”

 

“Thank you,” Lucy replies kindly.  “Hey, Iris, would you like to hear about my latest book?’ She looks at her daughter and son-in-law, “Perhaps we could get lunch together?”

 

Iris’ eyes grow wide with excitement.  “Mom? Dad? Can we please?” she begs.

 

Flynn and Lorena look at each other knowing there’s no way their daughter will let them say no.  “Sure,” Flynn answers, “That would be great.”

 

The group heads toward the restaurants along the River Walk with both couples holding hands as they walk.  Iris animatedly asks Lucy questions about the history of the Alamo and the founding of Texas.  When they reach the stairs and the narrower walkway, Wyatt gestures for Flynn and his family to take the lead.  Behind them, Lucy squeezes Wyatt’s hand.  He looks at her face which is beaming with pride for their family who has beaten the odds of time to finally be together.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This is by far the longest work that I've written to date, so I hope I've got you intrigued enough to keep going on this journey with me! 
> 
> Look for shorter ficlets to come over the summer to help fill in the blanks on some of the key scenes and events that I referenced throughout the story!


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